


In a world of Magic

by marsolino



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, One-Shot, Self Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 05:45:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17156342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsolino/pseuds/marsolino
Summary: Richard Hale is dumped as a newborn in the Harry Potter world after his untimely death. What will he do when he realizes he shares a roof with the future Lord Voldemort? Read to find out. Self-Insert. No pairings. One-Shot. Character death.





	In a world of Magic

Richard Hale didn’t know what he had done to deserve a second chance, but the fact remained that he was alive.

  
Truthfully, with the kind of life he led, he didn’t expect anything from the afterlife, if there was any. He grew up in an orphanage in Detroit and he had to learn since his infant days how the world really worked. The strongest rule above the weakest. Oh, the caretakers tried, bless their kind souls, but there was no denying that when attending to a group of a hundred or more children in a small place, keeping the situation calm was impossible. The older kids bullied the younger, stealing food and clothes to better their own life. In a sense, his early years prepared him for the larger world, because in the end everything came down to the same principle. Those stronger than you do what they want.

  
School was no better, coming from an orphanage wasn’t exactly a good thing, people would look at you pityingly and with concern, but no one ever did anything but pat you on the head encouragingly.

  
From there on it snowballed down. Which university would accept a kid, admittedly a smart one but with bad grades –because between the bullies and the fights he got himself into there was no time to study-, who couldn’t even pay tuition? Who would possibly hire an uninstructed teenager without qualification?

  
Most of his peers did what he did, they turned to crime. Drug dealings, a little bodyguard duties to the more shady people of importance in the underground of the city. The occasional murder –he was not proud of this, obviously, but what alternative did he have?-, at least he never resorted to rape and never struck down a woman. It was the only good thing he could think of.

  
During his free time he usually read, novels and fictions, a sports magazine, sometimes a football match with a friend not involved in his nocturnal life.

  
His death came two months after his twentieth birthday. It was a simple affair, go inside the building, sell the merchandise and get out. Simple.

  
Or not. Those damned cops ruined everything, how could he know the buyer would think he was the one who tattled to the police? He didn’t have the time to react before a bullet entered his chest, but at least he died with the satisfaction of knowing that the bastard died as well, as in his last moments managed to shot him through the head.

  
So considering the kind of live he lived, he could be excused if he found himself surprised when, moments after his death, he wasn’t in some kind of Paradise or Hell –more likely-, but was wailing as an infant being jostled from different arms.

  
It was this way, that David Grayson was born.

* * *

 

 _Really_ , he thought sarcastically to himself as he dispassionately watched through blurry vision the young helper of the orphanage change his diaper, _some things never change._

  
Apparently Bethy Grayson, his new mother, arrived on the steps of the orphanage to give birth to him and died a few days after. His father was unknown and his mother gave no name. He didn’t know the circumstances his mother found herself in, so he didn’t know whether he had some family around the city –he was pretty sure he was in England from the accent- and he held no hope for an adoption. Either way, he grew out of that stage a lot of years ago, hoping for two loving parents to adopt him would be useless and he didn’t need them anyway, better for other real children to receive the love of parents instead of a dead criminal somehow reincarnated in a newborn.

  
It was a year later, when his vision was somewhat back to normal that he noted the date on a newspaper and the place he was in now. It gave a good scare to the caretakers when the normally quiet and bright child started throwing a tantrum, the first ever since his arrival.

  
He was in London, 1925.

  
Just in time to get old enough to be snatched by the Army when the Second World War exploded.

  
_Fuck._

* * *

He was two years old now, his birthday fell in August 12th, and it was New Year’s Eve, 1926 and it was freezing cold. Snow was falling outside the orphanage and he probably was the only child still awake at this ungodly hour of the night. He couldn’t explain it himself, but he had a strange gut sensation, one that saved him more times he could count in his past life, that stopped him from falling asleep.

He was huddled near the window on the first floor of the building, facing the gate on the road, covered by all the blankets he could find, which, by the way, was not much considering the times and the economical situation of the country in general.

  
He was startled from his thoughts when he noticed a figure slowly but desperately making its way to the gates. He watched in silent fascination as a woman clad in nothing more than rags opened the gates and collapsed to the ground, holding her bulging stomach. Evidently, the helper on duty noticed too, because not a moment after she raced the grounds and took the figure in, her moans of pain caused by childbirth could be heard from his closed window.

  
_I wonder…_ his mother probably was the same as this woman, desperate to give birth and not enough money to pay for the doctors. He at least hoped the new kid could be raised by the mother and not raised in such an environment. Sure, this time he got off much better, the orphanage was smaller and there were fewer kids and the caretakers noticeably put effort in being at least cordial to the children, but the times were different and people didn’t even try to pretend to give a moment thought about orphans. In 1926 the country was trying to recover the economy from a worldwide conflict, people didn’t have the time nor the desire to worry about the likes of him.

  
Oh, well. He went to bed, the churning sensation in his gut calm now, and went to sleep snuggled under the covers.

* * *

He missed his home. He missed the internet and his books and cheap ice-cream and the TV and even the cops.

  
Not because of some misguided love for his former living situation, but because even his previous life was better than dealing with _this_.

  
Admittedly, he should have recognized the various signs a bit sooner. The place he lived in was named Wool’s Orphanage, the now snappy caretaker from the year previous who was reaching the limits of her patience -and he was sure he saw a bottle of gin in her hand last night- was named Cole and the ratty woman who gave birth the previous year was named Merope Riddle, née Gaunt.

  
The baby, the little devil, was named Tom Marvolo Riddle.

  
Oh _God_.

  
At first he didn’t think of anything about this strange coincidences, a lot of orphanages had the same name, and a lot of Coles wandered the country. Surely there was a woman with that name that would name a child that way?

  
He kept trying to convince himself about this when during a visit in central London during his sixth year of life he saw a dingy looking pub on Charring Cross Road named “The Leaky Cauldron”.

  
When they finally came back to the orphanage he immediately went to his room, which fortunately was for his private use since the other children didn’t want to stay near him –hey, it is difficult to connect with little brats when you are older than 20!- and collapsed on his bed.

  
A myriad of thoughts crossed his mind. He didn’t even want to _think_ about the fact that he was living inside a fictional world, sleeping under the same roof of the mass-murdering future Dark Lord of the Sith –no that’s another story-. What boggled his mind was that he could see the Leaky Cauldron, which meant he was a wizard. A Muggleborn at worst and a Half-blood bastard of some Pureblood at best. The idea of learning Magic was certainly intriguing, now that he thought about it, on numerous occasions some strange things happened around him but he passed it off as some tricks from the other kids. But this… Him? A Wizard? He almost dropped to the ground laughing hysterically.

  
He supposed he could try to do some things intentionally, maybe he should meditate or some such rot to try and find his magic? The books he read where magic was mentioned, people always tried to connect to their magic by calming their minds and searching “inside”. He didn’t have the faintest of what that meant, but if he could manage to actively _use_ magic… the possibilities were endless.

  
He didn’t even have to remain in the Wizarding World, because, like it or not, he was a low-class citizen in their world and he certainly wouldn’t take it bowing down like a dog. Just complete his education, turn seventeen to be able to do magic, and he would make a capital in the Muggle world. He really didn’t understand how families like those Weasleys could be poor. Come on, you can do Magic! Surely there is some way to make some easy money, most of all for someone with knowledge of the Muggle world, some touch of magic here and there, an imperius –maybe he could find something more subtle-, a confundus and so on, he would be rich in no time. He fully intended to at least live comfortably for the rest of his life without having to work more than necessary and with magic at his command, he could do it.

  
His musings stopped abruptly as he considered the first and most dangerous obstacle in his path. The little demon will not ruin his chance of life, not when he could already taste high quality wine and a villa on the beach in Italy because the bastard hated Muggles and “Mudbloods”. No, something had to be done about him. He didn’t really concern himself with those other Wizards, after all, without a powerful rallying point they would do nothing. Without Voldemort, they were _nothing_.

  
Another benefit of this discovery, perhaps the best, was that he wouldn’t have to enlist during the Second World War. Excellent.

  
And perhaps, he could take advantage of the naïveté of the Wizarding World too. He knew, more or less from what he remembered from the books, that there was no organized crime in that world. Sure, there was some illegal traffic of materials and goods but nothing really organized. He had the experience, he had lived that life before, it wouldn’t be such a hassle to put something together and gain a bit of gold from the wizards too. Dark Lords were too much troublesome, maybe he could become a Crime Lord?

  
This life suddenly became much more interesting.

* * *

During the years leading to the arrival of his Hogwarts letter, he diligently tried to connect himself with his Magic, and managed something consistent only after two years of work. Of course, he could cause some controlled outburst when extremely distressed or angered, but _intentional_ control of his magic, without emotional distress, meaning he could cause at least something to happen, if not _what_ he wanted, then _when_ he wanted, came only after two years of hard work.

  
This little breakthrough came when he was eight. He now could levitate with some concentration some small objects around him, could control small licks of flame and he managed to create a kind of _notice-me-not_ effect when he wanted to be left alone, which meant most of the time. By now, most of the children at the orphanage simply left him be. They had nothing against him, but after years of trying, they simply gave up and decided that if he didn’t want to spend time with them he wasn’t worth the effort.

  
Another interesting bit of magic he managed to create –recreate?- was a compulsion, he basically concentrated _very_ hard on someone and with a gentle brush of his magic against them they would do as asked. He found that children were most affected, whereas the adults around him had to be convinced more thoroughly, usually with a larger amount of magic and his requests asked more persuasively, to follow his suggestions.

  
Meanwhile, he watched the young Dark Lord like a hawk.

  
He had read something like this during his past life, _Fanfictions,_  where “real” people were dropped inside a fictional world after their death and suddenly changed every little thing their compassionate hearts couldn’t stand. One particularly hilarious one about the world he was in now – _Harry Potter_ \- had the female protagonist going to Hogwarts, making friends and buddies with every single Pureblood in the school despite being a “Mudblood”, falling in love with Voldemort and changing his life style and point of view in a heartbeat with the power of her love despite him being something like fifty years her senior. He would then suddenly change his goals from being the total dictator of a country to running for Minister of Magic. Yeah right.

  
He had no intention of befriending the brat or trying to change his views. He didn’t even want to be in a five feet radius of him. The fact that poor Tom had such a lousy childhood was not an excuse to become a murdering mad-man and certainly _not his problem._ He lived in the same, if not worse, condition during his first childhood and he turned out okay, more or less. He was the first to admit he pretty much would do anything to ensure his survival and murder was not an exception but he still had –some- morals. If the boy didn’t let go of his hatred by the time his own Hogwarts letter came, he would deal with him. There was no room for a powerful Dark Lord hunting for his head in his plans for the future.

* * *

He would be eleven in two months and he eagerly awaited the arrival of the letter for Hogwarts. He didn’t know if he would receive the same visit Dumbledore paid Riddle like in the books, but really, he didn’t need it, he knew all he needed to know already. His only concern was money. He didn’t know if he had enough.

  
In the three years since he was eight and gained a modicum of control on his magic, he made it a point to go gallivanting around London and basically robbing the passersby’s blind. Really, if making money was so simple, he didn’t even need to go to Hogwarts. Just a simple compulsion to give him all their money and _please, sir, could you forget this ever happened?_ , they would nod dazedly and go their way, while he went about repeating the process again and again and again.

  
In the course of three years, using the same method on average people, he amassed the respectful amount of two thousand pounds, give or take a few. Considering the times he lived in, he felt more than satisfied with his work. The problem was the conversion ratio with Wizarding Money. In any case, he was ready, he had money and he was exited to finally begin his magical education.

* * *

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Transfiguration Professor at said school, prepared for the last home-visit of the summer to the Muggleborn residences.

  
David Grayson lived in an orphanage, the poor lad, Wool’s orphanage to be precise, and he hoped he would be a bright boy. He saw first-hand in the past years some disturbing situations in those Muggle orphanages, but he always tried his best to make the child as comfortable as possible in the Wizarding World. To think, living without magic! His bruised heart always swelled with pride and joy seeing those tiny children grow and mature inside the halls of the most famous school of magic in Europe.

  
The current political unrest worried him a little, but he hoped his old friend Gellert would see the error of his ways and denounce the foolish propaganda he himself supported in his youth. He knew Gellert was beginning to form a following and the whispers came even to Britain and to his shame, in the school too.

  
It has never been a secret that Purebloods despised Muggleborns and Muggles, but with the news of Grindelwald’s propaganda against Muggles more and more people became more vocal about the issue and he started to notice that even the children he taught to started to regard those of Muggle heritage with open disdain.

  
He could only shake his head and hope for the best.

  
He apparated directly in front of the orphanage, a weak _notice-me-not_ field around him to conceal his arrival. He gazed thoughtfully at the building, noting the cracks on the walls and the rust on the gate. Certainly better condition could be found elsewhere, but the same could be said of the contrary.

  
He entered the grounds and arrived at the door, politely knocking three times.

  
“Yes?” A young girl, maybe twenty-one years of age, with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes answered the door, peeking at him from the small opening.

  
He smiled jovially, eagerly awaiting for his explanation of magic to the boy. It was always the most fun part of the home-visits. “Hello, dear, can you point me to the Matron? I have business with one of your charges.”

  
She gazed suspiciously at him for a moment, but he casually threw it off, he was used to even worse stares from his brother.

  
He was invited in and led to Mrs. Cole’s office, cluttered with papers and a relatively young woman on the other side of the desk.

  
“Yes, can I help you, sir?” She asked briskly. Obviously she had work to do.

  
“Straight to business then, madam. My name is Albus Dumbledore I am here to offer a place in my school to one of your charges, I believe his name is…”, he took out the letter and looked at the name, “David Grayson”.

  
She blinked, surprised. “David? What do you mean you have a place for him, we haven’t registered him in a school yet.”

  
“Ah, that would be because young Mr. Grayson has a place reserved since his birth, his parents signed him up, you see.”

  
She frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, that could be the case. How much does attending your institution cost? I’m afraid we are a bit tight on money at the moment…”

  
Albus smiled graciously, “You have nothing to worry about, we have a small fund for orphaned students. May I ask how long has Mr. Grayson lived here?”

  
“His whole life, Mr. Dumbledore. His mother arrived here already with her water broken and she gave birth immediately, she died a few day later. We don’t know the father or anything else really…”

  
Albus nodded slowly, processing the information. “I see… may I know if something strange ever happened around him?” he added, surreptitiously waving his wand in her direction, sending a silent calming charm and a compulsion charm to encourage her to talk.

  
He could visibly see the work of the spells as her shoulders relaxed and the wrinkles in her still young face smoothed over. “Yes, some in his early year. Sometimes glass would crack or break when he was crying or a book would fall from the shelf if he could not reach it, he usually is in perfect health and never took a flu in his entire life, really a polite child… not like that Riddle boy…” She finished in a low voice.

  
Another wave of his wand. “What about that other boy Mrs. Cole?”

  
She shifted hesitantly, as if unsure if to confide in a stranger. With another wave of his wand, he spoke. “Don’t be afraid to tell me Mrs. Cole. After all, we search for particular students with certain talents and nothing you could tell me about Mr. Riddle will put Mr. Grayson’s place in my school in jeopardy.” He finished confidently.

  
She still seemed hesitant, but she took out a bottle of gin, poured herself a glass and downed the alcohol in one gulp. “May I offer you a glass of gin?”

  
“No thank you, madam,” said Dumbledore.

  
After another couple of glasses, she smacked her lips frankly and stared at Dumbledore for a moment before regaling him with her story.

  
“I remember it clear as anything, because I’d just started here myself. New Year’s Eve and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night. And this girl, not much older than I was myself at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, she wasn’t the first. We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And the was dead in another hour. The only thing she said, the poor woman, was ‘I hope he looks like his papa’, and I won’t lie, she was right to hope it, because she was no beauty –and then she told me he was to be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, for _her_ father –yes, I know, funny name, isn’t it? She said the boy’s surname was to be Riddle and she died soon after that without another word. No one ever came for him and he’s been here ever since. He’s an odd one.”

  
“Yes…” Said Dumbledore, who, upon the name of the boy’s grandfather, began to have a sinking suspicion about the child. “I thought he might be… odd in what way?” he asked gently.

  
“Well, he… scares the other children, it’s always very hard to pin something to him, we cannot catch him and nasty things happen to those who bother him…”

  
The tale that she told him was very disturbing, about a child very bright, but also very dark. A tale about dead rabbit hanged from the ceiling, two children utterly terrified of him after an excursion to the sea and various other, as she put it, nasty things.

  
Once the story was at its end, he tentatively let his aura expand and – _there!_ Two other magical beings in the building. One more strong, probably Mr. Grayson, felt like a lighter shade of gray, and the other, smaller, was a darker shade of colour with wisps of black reaching out.

  
Clearly, this boy she was talking about was also magical and he was abusing his gift to hurt his fellow orphans. There was nothing he could do now, for it was against the law to inform Muggleborns of the existence of the Wizarding World before their eleventh birthday if not in dire circumstances and from the feel of the magic alone, he estimated three, maybe two years before his time came to join his fellow Witches and Wizards.

  
He could only hope the boy would not fall to the lure of power and rise against the odds. He was more delighted for the other aura, a typical neutral “colour” for a child not yet to his maturity.

  
He thanked Mrs. Cole for the talk and let her guide him to the room or Mr. Grayson, the main reason for his visit.

  
Upon opening the door, he looked inside to see a boy of eleven, with a mop of dark hair all over the place and clear blue eyes watching intently back at him. For a moment he thought he saw Charlus Potter, what with the bird’s nest the child had for hair, but clearly they had only a passing resemblance, just the hair and the slender frame of a child. If he hadn’t been present for the wedding vows, he would have swore he was in front of a “slip” on Alexander’s part.

  
The boy was on the bed, reading a book and clothed in what seemed the standard uniform of the orphanage.

  
After introduction were out of the way, he made his usual display of magic for Muggleborns, followed by the standard spiel on the Wizarding World. As expected, young David was impressed by the transfiguration of his desk in a small barking dog and his eyes grew to the size of saucers.

  
What he was not expecting was for the first words out of the boy’s mouth to be, “So that’s why I can do these things…”

  
Startled, Albus peered at the young lad. “What can you do, exactly, Mr. Grayson?” he asked gently.

  
David ducked his head embarrassedly and a blush spread across his cheeks. “I-I’ve never been able to connect to the other children here at the orphanage… the games they played and their antics seemed childish to me and I’ve always been more intelligent than the others… when I realized those strange things happened because of me I tried to control them because I didn’t want to hurt anybody…” he finished hesitantly, looking at him with his head still bowed.

  
Albus let out a low chuckle. Such a bright lad, clearly a Ravenclaw if he ever saw one. To try and _control_ accidental magic… so young! He could already envision the future of Mr. Grayson and he hoped for his success.

  
“Well, no damage, my boy. Tell me then, what can you do?”

  
“I can lift things with my mind and control fire, somewhat. I also noticed that people leave me alone when I wish others can’t see me, they pass in front of me but they don’t seem to even know about my presence and that’s it.” He finished excitedly, a shine in his bright blue eyes.

  
Dumbledore couldn’t help but be impressed, even he, after all these years of study couldn’t use more than a few weak spells wandlessly, and only those he knew perfectly by heart and could cast without thinking at that.

  
“That is your magic, my boy. If you accept your invitation to attend Hogwarts School you will be taught to control it and use it efficiently, what do you say?”

  
“YES!” David cheered happily.

  
Albus chuckled amusedly, “Now Mrs. Cole already told me about the financial situation of the orphanage and let me assure you, there will be no problems to you attending our institution. Hogwarts keeps a special fund for orphans so everything will be provided for. Would you like me to accompany you?” He asked, knowing from experience that boys from this kind of environment liked their independence.

  
David hesitated a little. “I-I don’t want to bother you more than necessary, sir. If you just point me in the right direction I will take care of myself.”

  
Albus peered intently in the young man’s eyes for a moment, before he replied. “Very well”.

  
The professor left the orphanage thirty minutes later and a bag of gold lighter, certain that his young charge would be able to complete his shopping without trouble.

* * *

  
A year passed and David came back to the orphanage for the summer. He learnt many things in classes about magic and his favorite was Charms. There was practically a charm for every situation one might get into. Either wizards were more lazy than he thought or they were an especially paranoid bunch.

  
He got sorted into Ravenclaw, as apparently the Hat thought his lust for knowledge of everything magical a good trait for the House of Ravens. David didn’t particularly agree with the statement. Generally he didn’t put much effort in learning anything if it wasn’t useful to his goals, but he wanted to know everything about magic. At least, everything he could before he decided to get the hell out of that backwater world. Now, the Muggle world of the 1930’ wasn’t very advanced when compared to what he was used to, but the Wizarding world was stuck in the Middle-Ages and showed no desire to change.

  
He used every opportunity when not in classes of doing homework to further increase his knowledge, he practically spent the entire year holed up in the library, researching new spells, new enchantments and obscure charms that would prove useful one day.

  
He tried to make some connections, but his social station wasn’t very high. He had already abandoned his plan of being a Crime Lord, he always got a laugh when he thought about it, because he simply wouldn’t have enough money and prestige to make the right contacts and no one would take a Mudblood seriously.

  
He had a mind for profit, but he wasn’t a genius like Riddle, able to charm, or blackmail and threaten, and entire House full of Purebloods with money to spend and get himself in the right circle.

  
So he entirely abandoned that line of thought, no reason to cry over spilled potion.

  
He also didn’t see a reason to make efforts to befriend those eleven year old brats inside the castle. There wasn’t much they could discuss about because of their age difference and he found himself more often than not asking the higher years for useful tips and spells they knew.

  
Now that it was summer, he could go back to watch the little Dark Lord. He still hadn’t decided what to do with the brat. He hoped, maybe naively, that he would change, that he would be able to lead a normal life and be a “productive member of society”, or whatever. But it seemed all his hopes were for naught.

  
He was still the bitter and angry boy he left months ago. He still terrorized the children of the orphanage and bullied the caretakers to follow his every whim.

  
He would give him another year before he took things into his own hands.

* * *

Another year passed, and David found himself in front of a difficult decision. The future Lord Voldemort was due to receive his Hogwarts letter later in the summer.

  
He knew, beyond doubt, that he would leave the Wizarding world behind him after his graduation. He couldn’t care less about what happened to that world after he got what he wanted and left. The problem was that he was sure his little Dark Lord would track him down and kill him once he rose to power. For a man who styled himself the Pureblood Heir of Slytherin, he couldn’t leave loose ends behind that knew his secret, that knew of his origins. Dumbledore would remember, obviously, and he couldn’t take care of him so easily. But David Grayson? He grew up with him and there was no way he could forget about him.

  
So David was in a difficult position at the moment.

  
He just finished his second year at Hogwarts, his knowledge kept growing by the day and plans kept forming in his mind to gain a fortune for himself and retire after a few years in a villa in Italy or a beach in southern France. With Veela, of course.

  
He couldn’t afford to let loose a menace like Tom Marvolo Riddle on the world at large. A small part of him wanted to do it to stop the needless violence. The numerous deaths Lord Voldemort would cause, children killed and women raped by his Death Eaters. He felt some sort of kinship with Harry Potter’s life, alone facing the wide world with no one to turn to. So, if he just solved the problem a few decades earlier, who could ever blame him? He was doing it for them.

  
Another part of him, the part that always had his survival first and foremost as a priority, simply wanted to lead a peaceful life without worrying about crazy madmen looking for him. Was it selfish? Yes. Was it horrible to think of killing a ten-year-old child? Yes. Did he care? No.

  
The carefully planned death of one Tom Marvolo Riddle happened during the summer, on July the 8th. David went over his plans hundreds of times to ensure the death could not be traced down to him.

  
He obviously couldn’t use magical means to do the act, because the only Wizard in the vicinity would be him and he would be the primary suspect in that case.

  
So he went about it the Muggle way. By now, he knew enough about potions to be able to brew an efficient poison with only Muggle ingredients. It was a slow progress, because he had to ensure that no amount of diagnosis spells would be able to pick it up, and the Muggles would simply dismiss the case at this point in time. Conflicts were brewing in the continent and no one had time to investigate the death of a hated child in an orphanage.

  
The actual act was so simple it was anticlimactic. He went in the kitchen under a weak wandless invisibility charm –he made sure to keep his wandless magic strong, seeing everyone relying on wands he didn’t want to be helpless without one- and when little Tom came for his ration he poured the poison in the plate after causing a distraction by exploding a window.

  
He quickly exited the room and, dropping the charm, made sure everyone saw him as he got his own plate and sat down to eat.

  
The poison would start slow and in the course of a week, two at most, his muscle coordination would start to wane, then drowsiness and insomnia and finally a heart-attack. Tom’s magic wouldn’t be able to deal with the poison, it was too strong for his still developing magic and without a Medi-Witch/Wizard on hand, his death was assured. Muggles wouldn’t even know where to begin with when confronted with this new poison no one knew about.

  
It caused David some sleepless nights when he thought about the needless suffering Tom would go through, but it was for a greater cause.

  
In the end, he consoled himself knowing that thanks to him, hundreds of deaths would be avoided.

  
Now, all he had to do was complete his education and make his way in the real world and accomplish his plans. Whatever happened to the Wizards after that… well, he already solved one of their greatest problems, everything else was their own fault.

**Author's Note:**

> It always baffled me why numerous Self-Inserts in the Harry Potter stories wanted to change everything and never got to the heart of the problem. I read a couple of unfinished Fanfictions where the character is dumped in the same orphanage as Riddle and various years later –when Tom is very proficient in the Dark Arts, already made an Horcrux (which means he already murdered someone in cold blood) and is generally kicking ass left and right- they found themselves trapped with no way out because they wanted to change his heart and befriend him. Well, my OC is of a different opinion. Just from the memories of Albus Dumbledore we can already guess that whatever future awaits Tom Marvolo Riddle, it wasn’t anything good. By that moment, Tom already was a little evil and relished the feeling of power his magic gave him over the weaker. When he was informed that magic was real and realized the potential of it there really was no way back.  
> I don’t know if Charring Cross Road was already present in that time period, but for simplicity’s sake I used the same name for the street housing the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.
> 
> PS. In the next few days I'll be posting all of my works on AO3, some are completed, most are unfinished. I'm not currently writing so don't hold your breath for updates ;)


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